1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device for filling viscous materials and more particularly to a device for filling a container with a fluid substance having a high viscosity, such as curry roux.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the field of, particularly in food industry, it is needed to fill an appropriate container such as paper packs, plastic cups and bottles with a rather viscous substance. For this purpose, there have been proposed various method therefor. For instance, as shown in FIG. 13, the aforementioned fluid substance (W) having a viscosity of, for instance, not less than 10,000 centipoise has conventionally been charged in an appropriate container through a single nozzle (N). However, in such a case, the container is filled with the fluid substance to overflowing, which makes it impossible to properly seal the container with a cover and such method requires the use of a proper means for flattening the substance charged in the container. In addition, a method in which a plurarity of nozzles (N) are used for filling a container with the substance, as shown in FIG. 14, has been put into practical use in order to solve the foregoing problem. However, this method is still insufficient to completely eliminate such a drawback.
In order to make the fluid substance filled in a container more smooth, it seems to be most effective to vibrate the container with an appropriate means. To do this, there has conventionally been proposed a method in which a compressed air flow is intermittently injected to the bottom of a container while filling it with a highly viscous substance. However, this method suffers from various problems to be solved, such as those mentioned below. First, the intermittent injection of the compressed air is effected by the switching (on-off) operation of an electromagnetic valve, however, the use of such a valve is insufficient in its durability. Secondly, a sanitary problem is caused depending on the quality of the compressed air used, while even if the quality thereof is good, the compressed air disturbs the conditions of atmospheric air, which leads to the occurrence of other sanitary problems such as the contamination of the substance to be filled in a container by various dusts.